A survey of Americans' beliefs about stratification (social and economic inequality) is proposed, to provide a comprehensive description of the American consciousness of inequality, its sources, and its consequences. Beliefs about stratification have been studied piecemeal in traditional areas of study such as subjective class identification, relative deprivation, and beliefs about the poor. However, this literature suffers from a fragmentation of focus in that no study addresses stratification beliefs as a system of interrelated cognitions, as well as suffering from limitations of research design and statistical analysis. Hence, a survey of a representative sample of the American populace is proposed. In addition to measures of a broad range of potential antecedent factors, the survey interview will contain questions eliciting respondents' perceptions, explanations, and evaluations of three primary aspects of the stratification system: distributive inequality (the way rewards are distributed in society), opportunity (the process by which individuals attain different shares of rewards), and social class ( the existence and composition of groups of individuals who share common social positions). Such a study design will permit the treatment of stratification beliefs as systems, in the context of their sources in the individuals background, socialization, and experience, and thus the testing of theses concerning belief organization and the roots of beliefs. A pilot study has produced suggestive preliminary findings and, more important, indicates that an interview covering the required range of topics is methodologically feasible and can yield reliable results. Results of the full-scale study should be of relevance within sociology (permitting the integration of a currently scattered and disorganized literature), and social psychology (offering tests in a field setting of generalizations derived largely from laboratory experimentation), and can assist in both the design of social policy related to inequality and the assessment of its impact.